Hi!  Ali here, your author!  Sorry to those of you who were waiting for the rest of "Weaving a Romance" to come out, I'm still working on it!!  This is a "short" story...meaning its only one chapter long.  This focuses on what I believe happened to Darien in the Negaverse while he was brainwashed by Beryl.  It picks up right before "The Past Returns" from the DIC dub...(the episode in which the Sailors find the portal to D-point and then return to the final days of the Silver Millenium).  There is a lot in here which never happened in the series, such as the anti-climatic near-healing of Darien in the warehouse.  It is a look into what the evil Prince Darien's feelings were and what, if he remembered anything at all, he could recall from his past life.
     E-mail slrunico@aol.com to comment!!!!!!


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"A Dream that Will Not Die"
A FOUR PART SHORT STORY
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Darien was surrounded by a deep haze.
     He was looking for something...but he had no idea what that something was.  All he knew was he had to find it as fast as he could.  Why do I feel I've been on this mission before? he asked himself stepping further into the fog.  This is all so familiar...when will I reach my destination?
     Suddenly the mists cleared and a girl was in front of him...appearing as suddenly as if the mists had created her.  She was looking up at the white moon above, which was wavering in the air like the night sky was clear water and was simply making a reflection.  The light had come with her, and he welcomed it gladly.  He had missed the light.
     Rose petals fell down all around the the girl and Darien, soft and gentle.  Red roses, that perfumed the breeze and intoxicated his senses.  He caught one in his hand and it disappeared, making a kissing sensation...the fluttering of a woman's lips against his palm.
     The girl turned to face him, and her smile was radiant, and it made his heart sing to see her so, even though he did not really know her, and yet he did.  Soft golden locks of hair done up in a rather unusual style fell about her face, framing the peaches and cream complexion that was marred only by pink lips and crystalline blue eyes.  She was happy to see him, and her hand stretched out to his.
     Darien reached his arm out to meet hers, so they could unite and be together.
     But all too suddenly there was a lightning flash in the sky.  The rose petals turned into harsh rain drops that splattered and wet Darien, yet did not seem to touch the princess.  Princess?  His mind grasped at the word.  How could he know what she was?  As if he knew her.
     The look on her face changed in the same instant as the storm had begun.  The smile vanished and the lips trembled...the eyes wavered, (wavered...where had he heard that word before...like the moon...yes, like the moon in the sky).  He looked into their blue depths, and he cried out, and his fingers curled back into his palm as if struck.  For he could no longer see his reflection in her gaze.  Nothing was there, except the ghosts of false love and true pain.
     And the light...the light that had once bathed him...now curled back like his fingers, radiating the girl but staying away from him.  The light, he wanted it, he needed it, almost as badly as he needed the pixie sprite it now held in its tendrils.  But it was not for him.  It would only be for him if he wanted the light, and even though he did -- so much -- something in him was preventing the light from coming back.  Perhaps it was she who did not want him to have the light.  He would never know.
     Was it her head that began to shake, or was it his imagination?  No, it was her head, slowly at first, then faster and faster, swinging her twin ponytails back and forth like yellow whips in the rain.  "No, no, no," she murmured.
     "Please," Darien begged.  "Is it I who have made you so upset?"
     "You're not him," she whispered.  "You aren't...you're different."  A tear cascaded down her cheek, leaving a silvery trail.
     "I AM him!" exclaimed Darien, feeling like he was drowning.  "I am...look at me, I am!"
     The girl let out a cry, and more tears followed the first.  "Come back to me, Darien!" she pleaded, looking at the moon.  "Come back to me, be free again!!!"  And her face became wet for the first time, though not by the rain, but by the tears.  She was looking at something in the moon, something that he was not able nor would ever be able to see.  A secret.  And her voice continued:
     "Come back to me, Darien...be free again!!"

Darien woke up, sweat covering his body.  "The dream again," he said with a curse.  The dark gloom of the room settled where the light of the girl had been.  He longed to see her beauty once more, even though he now scorned anything but evil.
     His bed chambers felt like a coffin; never mind that it was the most handsome room in the palace.  Queen Beryl, his liege, had ordered he would have such a nice staying place.  But still, Darien wanted more.  More than the cell he called home, more than the fighting every day, more than everything he now had.  A more, a something, that could never be called by its true name.
     As soon as he thought those thoughts the pain seized his heart as it did every time he did something traitorous, reminding him that he had a new mission now.  "Find the Silver Crystal," Darien murmured, clenching his fist tightly.  "Get it back from Sailor Moon and the Sailor Scouts.  For Queen Beryl.  My one goal." 
     The girl and the light -- the damned light -- invaded his mind again, her sad cries echoing through his soul and her salty tears coursing through his veins.  There was something about her, something that burned at his heart always, a memory he did not remember.  "Who are you," he asked aloud.  "Where did you come from and what do you mean that you are in my mind always?"
     The room offered no reply, and Darien had no choice but to go back to sleep.